SALT SEDENTARISM

To move or not to move, that is the question. I work in the office, the chair sucks me. I study and I want to get the best grade with my elbows glued to the table. I throw myself on the couch, turn on the television, and spend hours from channel to channel. I open the computer or turn on the mobile and social networks absorb me. I invite my friends to my house, turn on the game console and we have a “fifa”. Have you felt identified with any of these situations?

We turn on many things: the television, the mobile phone, the computer, the game console … But what we do not want to turn on is our health , the desire to move, to activate ourselves. Normally an article begins commenting on the prevalence, but it will be the last thing you read, because first we are going to observe, you and I, what happens to your body if it does not move.

Youth is a treasure, especially because it keeps us in the best of states, but when it reaches its peak and we go from our twenties to our thirties, everything that we are not doing for our health begins to accumulate in the form of “Ills”: back pain, weight gain, fat accumulation, fatigue … And all this eventually turns into disease, into fatal diseases.

Yes, yes, as you read it, you can die for not moving. And it is that among the risk factors for mortality around the world, physical inactivity ranks fourth. Being overcome by hypertension, tobacco and hypercholesterolemia. Fifth place goes to overweight and obesity. But of course, this is a trap, because except for tobacco consumption, the other three risk factors (stress, cholesterol and obesity) could be avoided by leaving a sedentary lifestyle .

As if this wasn’t enough, being sedentary increases your risk of cardiovascular, tumor, lung and metabolic diseases.

Not moving implies that your heart will be less active, and your cardiovascular system, having no work, will become lazy, with which it will have less and less work capacity, each time it will be less efficient. But not out of sheer laziness, but because you will eventually lose the ability to react to efforts. It is the same that happens in the office with your colleague who was not entrusted with tasks because their result was almost always disastrous … After a while, because he hardly had a job, your colleague now performs less, right? Well, your cardiovascular system responds the same as a worker, so if you don’t train it, in the end it will not be efficient and your cardiovascular risk will increase, your oxygen consumption will decrease, so will your functional capacity and … in a short time you will be over 30 years .

In addition, not only is the risk increased due to the lack of work of the heart, but the high availability of carbohydrates facilitates their transformation into fats (triglycerides and cholesterol), and this implies a greater risk of cardiovascular complications, in addition to hypertension, as they can be atherosclerosis, angina pectoris, myocardial infarction, cerebrovascular disease, etc.

This accumulation of fat can be the trigger for overweight and obesity, and later these also for diabetes, joint problems, bone problems … It is a vicious circle that links one situation with another …

If you want to reduce the chances of hearing your doctor establish these and many other diagnoses derived from inactivity (cancer, pulmonary embolism …), get going. You are in time to remedy the disease that may be just around the corner for not moving.

I have already told you in a brief and summarized way the consequences that a sedentary lifestyle can have for you. But you are not the only one who does not move enough, since only in Spain almost 45% of people declare themselves sedentary. This problem is more pressing in women, since 50% declare to be sedentary, while in men 40% do so (INE. National Health Survey 2011-2012).

It is in your hands to reverse this trend. Take the backpack, come to your nearest FAST center and let’s move.